Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women Holds Meeting with States, Launches General Recommendation on Dismantling Gender Stereotypes and the Unequal Power Relations that Sustain Them
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women today held an informal meeting with States parties and launched its general recommendation 41 on dismantling gender stereotypes and the unequal power relations that sustain them.
In opening remarks on the general recommendation, Awa Dabo, Unted Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that around the world, women’s human rights were being challenged. Climate change was placing further strain on communities, and technologies were changing communities at rapid speed. Gender stereotypes were about authority, dignity and power, and therefore dismantling them was vital for all, but especially trans women, indigenous women and others. The elaboration of the recommendation was timely, recognising gender stereotypes as a form of discrimination based on established power structures that were so embedded that they appeared to go unnoticed. States parties must fight against this, and the recommendation constituted a guiding path for States parties, communities and peoples.
Presenting the recommendation, Nahla Haidar, Committee Chairperson, said there was a fundamental truth at the heart of the Convention: equality could not be achieved while stereotypes continued to define women’s and girls’ roles, choices and opportunities. The adoption of general recommendation no. 41 was not the end of the Committee’s work. It was an invitation and a call to action. The responsibility now was to translate it into laws, policies, institutional reforms and everyday practices that made a tangible difference in women’s and girls’ lives.
Sophia Calltorp, Director of the United Nations Women Geneva office; Bandana Rana, Committee Expert; and Rhoda Reddock, Committee Expert, also made opening statements. States and civil society then took to the floor to reiterate their support for general recommendation 41, highlighting its potential to ensure full equality for all, although several States pointed to the importance of religious and cultural norms and that States had the right to legislate within that context.
Speaking in the discussion were Pakistan on behalf of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, Nepal, Barbados, Mexico, Cyprus, Egypt, Canada, Russian Federation, Ireland, China, Ecuador, Bahrain on behalf of the Gulf Cooperation Council, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Belgium, the Netherlands, Holy See, Cabo Verde, France, Iraq, Dominican Republic, Senegal, Azerbaijan and Cuba.
Also speaking was the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), as well as the non-governmental organizations MenEngage Global Alliance and the Centre for Reproductive Rights.
At the beginning of the meeting, the Committee held an informal meeting with States parties. In introductory remarks, the Committee Chairperson said this was a moment when the promise of equality was being tested, not only by old forms of discrimination but by new systems that could reproduce inequality at unprecedented speed and scale. Today, choices must be made, and a future chosen in which technology served equality, rather than deepening exclusion. The measure of the commitment would not be found in the eloquence of declarations, but in whether women and girls were safer, freer, more equal and more able to shape their own futures. The digital future must not be designed around yesterday’s inequalities.
Also providing opening statements were Committee Experts Rangita da Silva de Alwis, Corinne Detmeijer-Vermeulen, Genova Tisheva, Ana Pelaez Narvaez, and Esther Eghobamien-Mshelia.
In the discussion, States recognised and applauded the work of the Committee, pointing out that it was an essential step towards a more just and inclusive society for all. Speakers recognised that harmful stereotypes and unequal participation remained barriers to women’s full participation in society, and addressing this required, among other points, education and social engagement, to which States parties were committed, and the work of the Committee would aid them in this regard.
Participating in the discussion were Mexico, Armenia, Brazil, Lebanon, Spain, China, Egypt, France, Switzerland, Ecuador, Russian Federation, Uruguay, Chile, Iraq, Lesotho, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates.
The Committee’s ninety-third session is being held from 5 to 30 October. All documents relating to the Committee’s work can be found on the session’s webpage. Meeting summary releases can be found here. The webcast of the Committee’s public meetings can be accessed via the UN Web TV webpage.
The Committee will next meet at 5 p.m. on Friday, 30 October to close its ninety-third session.
Informal Meeting with States Parties
Opening Statements
NAHLA HAIDAR, Chairperson of the Committee, said this was a moment when the promise of equality was being tested, not only by old forms of discrimination but by new systems that could reproduce inequality at unprecedented speed and scale. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimnation against Women spoke to the lives of women and girls in every region: to their safety, their freedom, their work, their health, their participation, their access to justice, and their ability to shape the decisions that affected them. The women, peace and security agenda gave that promise a political and operational dimension.
The treaty bodies were among the most effective guardians of international law. The Optional Protocol was also a vital tool. The future was challenging all in the digital sphere, and the urgency was equally clear. The strength of the Convention had always been its insistence that discrimination was not inevitable. It was produced by laws, policies, institutions, practices and choices, and what was produced could be changed. Today, choices must be made and a future chosen in which technology served equality, rather than deepening exclusion.
States parties had the authority to legislate, regulate, finance, investigate, remedy and lead. They could ratify the Optional Protocol, strengthen national implementation, support the treaty bodies, protect women peacebuilders, include women with disabilities, hold businesses accountable, and govern artificial intelligence through a human rights and gender lens. The measure of the commitment would not be found in the eloquence of declarations, but in whether women and girls were safer, freer, more equal and more able to shape their own futures.
The women, peace and security agenda must be made real in the lives of women affected by conflict, and women with disabilities must not be left behind. The digital future must not be designed around yesterday’s inequalities. The promise of the Convention was equality in law, equality in practice and equality in lived experience. The task was to make that promise real.
RANGITA DE SILVA DE ALWIS, Committee Expert, said that in February 2026, the Committee adopted a historic addendum to the women, peace and security agenda to address the changing face of conflict. It called for a heightened multilateralism, women’s parity leadership and an intersectional lens to address the evolving security risks caused by transboundary threats such as climate change, sea level rise, food insecurity, the growing militarisation of space, nuclear threats and the weaponisation of technology, including cyber-attacks and artificial intelligency in warfare.
This was a tipping point at which artificial intelligence was vaulting everybody into a whole new phase of human history. At the cusp of a dystopian reality, there was a call by the very leaders of the artificial intelligence frontier to pause the inexorable march of artificial intelligence and to pace the frontier in recursive self-learning artificial intelligence. Fundamentally, the Committee’s addendum, issued in February 2026, addressed the cycle of impunity and bent the arc of justice toward a survivor-centered justice approach. Conflict-related gender-based violence remained one of history’s greatest silences.
While war was still fought on women’s bodies, they were not the only battlegrounds, as their minds were battlegrounds too. Deliberate starvation as a tool of warfare was a crime against humanity and its face was that of a woman. Sounding the alarm on nuclear armament, the Secretary-General had warned that “humanity is on a knife’s edge”. The addendum emphasised that the nuclear non-proliferation treaty recognised the gendered effects of radiation and the transgenerational toll of nuclear production and testing on women and girls.
The addendum supported a gender-sensitive regulatory framework to ensure compliance with the principles of humanitarian law - the principles of distinction, precaution and proportionality. Several States had highlighted that the consequences of bias in machine learning could be amplified in war, resulting in the unintentional targeting of women civilians, and women of colour may be misrecognised at a higher rate, exacerbating existing power imbalances and biases.
Climate change was no longer an invisible threat to women’s and girls’ security.
This was a time of reversal of generational gains of women’s and girls’ human rights, a backlash against feminism, threats to the rules-based global order and the shrinking of the civic space. The addendum developed by the Committee altered the masculinised narrative of international law and propelled some of the new developments in international law.
CORINNE DETMEIJER-VERMEULEN, Committee Expert, presented two initiatives developed with members of the Committee’s working group on working methods: the shortlist online tool and a proposed joint general recommendation on coercive control.
Preparing country reviews was increasingly demanding, particularly when members must examine as many as 70 submissions, while the United Nations budget crisis reduced meeting time. Shortlist, developed by a Dutch legal design studio, compiled information from submissions, identified concerns and priorities, and provided supporting sources. Crucially, it did not replace Committee members’ judgement: they remained responsible for verifying information, setting priorities and formulating questions. It could reduce duplication, ease the burden on country rapporteurs and task forces, and strengthen constructive dialogues.
The second initiative aimed to strengthen coherence across treaty bodies, and she proposed developing joint guidance on intimate coercive control involving five Committees. Coercive control was a form of gender-based violence that too often remained invisible, and a pattern of behaviour, not merely a series of isolated incidents. Its consequences engaged women’s and children’s rights, economic, social and cultural rights, and protections relating to disability, race and ethnic origin. Joint guidance would help States recognise these patterns, respond effectively and apply a coherent human rights framework. Together, these measures showed how the Committee could help build a more coordinated, efficient and effective treaty body system without compromising human rights protection.
GENOVA TISHEVA, Committee Expert, said the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women was an essential element to the implementation of all rights as stipulated in the Convention and to the access of women and girls to justice, also at the international level. Under the first procedure, to date, 273 communications had been registered. Of these, 184 had been decided, while 89 remained pending consideration. Seventy-five per cent of the cases where a violation was found were closed at the follow-up stage with a fully or partially satisfactory note, showing a high degree of commitment and cooperation of States parties with this procedure, which had allowed to achieve positive results for and to bring relief to the victims, and ensuring non-repetition.
Concerning the confidential inquiry procedure, the Committee had completed 15 inquiries since the entry into force of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on 22 December 2000. Nine inquiry reports finding grave and systematic violations of the Convention were published on violations such as different forms of gender-based violence, denial of sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the last one being on the abduction of schoolgirls.
In the current context of global backlash and threats against women’s rights and gender equality, the inquiry procedure under the Optional Protocol was one of the few international mechanisms that allowed an independent body to examine grave or systematic violations of the rights of women and girls, without requiring the exhaustion of domestic remedies, thus providing an avenue of redress and access to justice for women and girls who were victims or survivors of grave or systematic violations of their rights under the Convention.
Concerning the individual communications procedure, the task was to ensure that the 89 pending cases were addressed effectively and in a timely manner. The Committee identified budget cuts as a major challenge also to its inquiry-related activities, as they severely affected the staff of the Office of the High Commissioner who were needed to service and support inquiries, as well as the costs of in-country inquiry visits. For both procedures, it was vital to ensure the resources for the needed meeting time of the respective working groups of the Committee.
ANA PELAEZ NARVAEZ, Committee Expert, said that she would speak about the proposed general recommendation 42 on the elimination of intersecting forms of discrimination against women and girls with disabilities. The Committee had decided that this would be the topic of the next general recommendation and that she would be the focal point for developing it. During this session, the Committee had been considering the conceptual and methodological proposals for the general recommendation, and a task force had been set up to do the work.
It was important to note the thematic areas to be covered by the forthcoming general recommendation 42, which would cover the full recognition of all of the rights of girls and women with disabilities. The general recommendation would cover acquired disability as a consequence of gender-based violence, trafficking, sexual violence and conflict. It would address the exercise of the rights of women and girls who were responsible for caring for family members with disabilities, and the rights of women in connection with disability and age. The general recommendation would also cover harmful practices based on gender and disability, for example forced sterilisation, coerced abortions, forced pregnancies and removal of parental rights, among others. The general recommendation would also cover the rights of women and girls in connection with disability and other factors of exclusion that aggravated exclusion, such as poverty, rural dwelling, ethnical or racial orgin and others.
The preparatory process would be done by a group of experts and the Committee would discuss it with Experts from the Human Rights Committee, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Committee on the Rights of the Child, to develop the general recommendation. However, it would not be a joint general recommendaiton.
The task force established would continue the work on the proposed recommendation, and this was particularly important given its role in the context of regional negotiations to be carried out in the future. There would be a half day of debate on the proposed recommendation at the Committee’s next session in February 2027. There would also be inclusive, accessible global consultations in Barcelona next spring, as well as regional and sub-regional consultations throughout the world.
ESTHER EGHOBAMIEN-MSHELIA, Committee Expert, talking about the work of the Committee on business and digital-led technologies, including artificial intelligence, said this was a time when the world was changing at unprecedented speed. However, the question was whether this would advance the fight against discrimination, or transpose it to the digital world, continuing to leave women facing risks and violence. Over 2.7 billion women were reportedly excluded from the digital economy. Artificial intelligence systems frequently trained on data sets containing discriminatory tropes that often perpetuated the many forms of discrimination facing women, ignoring women’s experiences, realities and needs, particularly for women facing inter-sectional forms of discrimination.
Bias-embedded data forced discrimination along the digital chain, and artificial intelligence replicated this at unprecedented scale and speed, making the Convention vital in States’ efforts to dismantle discrimination and provide remedies at all levels of the virtual world. This should use it as a guide throughout the entire technology life cycle and development of artificial intelligence to effectively shape human-centred digitisation.
A paradigm shift must be embraced, and the Convention was a vital tool in this rapidly-changing landscape. The Committee had continued to work with all stakeholders to strengthen and advance implementation on many levels, including algorithmic discrimination. Emerging technologies must promote, rather than undermine, the rights of women and girls, with a digital age that protected and supported all, recognising women’s leadership, and integrating women’s and girls’ rights into the digital world.
Statements and Questions by States Parties
States said that given the global backsliding, the efforts of the Committee were fundamental, including the general recommendations. Substantive equality required lifting all barriers that interposed themselves in front of the achievement of women’s rights. The Convention remained an essential tool for combatting discrimination. The work on artificial technologies remained of great interest: technological transformations should contribute to the rights of women and girls. The Committee should work to build synergies in these fields across the United Nations.
This was a time marked by increasingly polarised discourse and a backlash against the rights of women and girls in all their diversity. In this context, the work of the Committee was recognised and applauded. General recommendation 41 on dismantling gender stereotypes addressed core obstacles to the general enjoyment of human rights. The continued efforts of the Committee were appreciated, and it was recognised that harmful stereotypes and unequal participation remained barriers to women’s full participation in society. Addressing this required, among other points, education and social engagement, to which States parties were committed. The constructive dialogue with the Committee was applauded by several speakers, who pointed out that it was an essential step towards a more just and inclusive society for all. The Committee’s hard work and commitment was for the benefit of the whole of the international community.
Since its ratification, the Convention had made decisive contributions to the fight against discrimination and to promote full participation of women and girls in society. The serious human rights violations suffered by Afghan women must remain at the heart of the international agenda, whilst, a State pointed out, respecting Afghanistan’s sovereignty. In this context, the launch of general recommendation 41 was an important step, as it clarified power structures and what sustained them in their maintaining of gender stereotypes and discrimination. Cross-cutting action was required to address the root causes of discrimination, and the focus in the recommendation on intersectionality was thus of great importance.
Women’s participation in conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction was fully supported. The efforts made in the new recommendation to implement the Convention and eliminate stereotypes through reforms in legislature and educational activities were applauded and supported. Stereotypes were increasingly amplified and reproduced by artificial intelligence systems, and yet gender was still largely absent from artificial intelligence recommendations. Therefore, there was a need for a strong framework to close that gap. The Committee was asked how it saw its role in bringing the Convention into international artificial intelligence regulatory processes?
The impact of the liquidity crisis on the work of the Committee was recognised, and full support was offered to the Committee in that context. Were clustered reviews a way ahead, a State party asked? An effective and efficient treaty body system required consistent and predictable funding. The continuing problems in delays in consideration of reports by States was highlighted as an impediment to the effective and efficient work of the Committee. The serious lack of resources for the Committee to undertake its work was deplored. What would ensure effective high-quality work was for the Committee to remain open to constructive and open dialogue with the States parties.
The Committee provided assistance to States on the realisation of the Convention, but it should not overlap into other United Nations bodies’ areas of competence, as each treaty body should fulfil its mandate, a State pointed out. Modern technology could bring benefits, but also threats, and the consideration of confidential information was an important part of the Committee’s work, although it must not allow this to impede its work on the consideration of State periodic reports, and it should not go outside the provisions of the Convention, or interpret it too broadly. The use of terms that did not enjoy consensus was also a matter of concern.
It was important to build on the work of the Committee, particularly as the fight against gender inequality in the digital world reposed on the fight in the real world. There was a need to meet the needs of women, and joined-up recommendations were the way forward, along with the sharing of positive experiences in various countries. Women must be given access to peace-building efforts and recovery efforts. On artificial intelligence, it was important to tap into this in the area of education. The prevention of technology-assisted violence must be a key area.
What practical technical assistance could help States after their reviews to overcome institutional inaction, one State asked. There should be greater coordination across the treaty body system to improve efficiency and implementation, whilst ensuring continuing dialogue with States parties. There must be a safe and inclusive digital environment for all.
Responses
NAHLA HAIDAR, Committee Chairperson, in response, said many were wondering about the position of the Committee on the paper by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Committee was one of the Committees most open to some of the proposals in the paper, having already been looking into some of the options. The Committee had applied a form of regionalisation in the South Pacific already, understanding how regionalisation and decentralisation could have a multiplying effect. The Committee was resolutely open and ready to pilot something new. However, the system was not uniform, and every treaty body had its own system, but all were working towards more harmonisation.
On resources, and how they were being used to produce general recommendations and addenda, Ms. Haidar said this work was not being done at the expense of any meeting time with States parties, but were instead being done during intersessional periods and on the Committee members’ own time and resources. The shrinking of resources had impeded tasks that were mandated tasks, and these were not being selected specifically.
RANGITA DE SILVA DE ALWIS, Committee Expert, responding, said both mechanisms of the Optional Protocol used the same mechanism. One was a quasi-judicial mechanism, and strict requirements were applied. An admissibility briefing had been published on the website of the Committee.
Launch of General Recommendation 41
Introductory Statements
NAHLA HAIDAR, Committee Chair, said there was a fundamental truth at the heart of the Convention: equality could not be achieved while stereotypes continued to define women’s and girls’ roles, choices and opportunities. For four and a half decades, the Convention had served as the global framework for advancing women’s human rights and challenging discrimination in law and in practice. General recommendation no. 41 built on that legacy and responded to an enduring obstacle to equality. It provided States parties and all those working to implement the Convention with clear guidance on how gender stereotypes sustain discrimination and what must be done to dismantle them.
Gender stereotypes were not merely attitudes or assumptions. They were a form of discrimination against women that shaped laws and institutions, influenced public and private decision-making, restricted women’s choices and opportunities, and perpetuated unequal power relations. Stereotypes affected not only individual women and girls: they constrained entire societies by limiting talent, undermining democratic participation, normalising violence and preventing women from realising their shared potential.
The adoption of general recommendation no. 41 was not the end of the Committee’s work. It was an invitation and a call to action. The responsibility now was to translate it into laws, policies, institutional reforms and everyday practices that made a tangible difference in women’s and girls’ lives. States parties were urged to use this general recommendation as a practical framework for action, and civil society organizations and all partners were urged to help ensure its widest possible dissemination and effective implementation.
AWA DABO, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that around the world, women’s human rights were being challenged. Climate change was placing further strain on communities, and technologies were changing communities at rapid speed. The backlash against gender equality was gaining ground. All of this was linked to deeply entrenched gender stereotypes. Many believed that men made better political and business leaders than women. This could shape decisions at many levels, determining whose voices carried authority and who exercised power. Digital technologies could amplify this. Gender stereotypes were about authority, dignity and power, and therefore dismantling them was vital for all, but especially trans women, indigenous women and others.
The elaboration of the recommendation had come from lived experiences. It was timely, recognising gender stereotypes as a form of discrimination based on established power structures that were so embedded that they appeared to go unnoticed. States parties must fight against this, as stated in the Convention, and the recommendation showed how this could be done. Lasting change required action across society. The general recommendation constituted a guiding path for States parties, communities and peoples. Gender stereotypes could be dismantled, but this required a recognition of what needed to be changed.
SOPHIA CALLTORP, Director of the United Nations Women Geneva Office, said this was an important milestone in transforming the promises held in the Convention. Gender stereotyping was not simply a matter of individual justice, but institutionalised discrimination. A gender stereotype was a simplified and selective portrayal of women and men, reducing their lives to basic concepts, embedded in institutions and embedded in unequal power relations, devaluing women, privileging masculine authority and power, and prescribing social roles, constraining women and girls’ choices and opportunities, as well as access to power, resources, and decision-making. Combatting this required going beyond challenging individual prejudice to the rules and practices from behind which discrimination came and ensuring that institutions upheld equality.
By clarifying States’ responsibilities under the Convention, in this recommendation the Committee called for a change to the structures that perpetuated inequalities. Stereotypes were embedded in institutions, not just in people’s minds. Patriarchal ideas were often presented as natural or embedded in tradition, and the recommendation addressed these underlying ideas, rather than treating stereotypes as isolated. Gender stereotypes were most damaging to those with the least power across hierarchies, denying women and girls their rights, particularly those facing intersectional forms of discrimination. The insights of the recommendation aligned with United Nations Women’s own research and provided an important complementary and analytical lens to advancing progress.
BANDANA RANA, Committee Expert, said violence against women did not begin with the first blow, but much earlier - with the belief that women were inferior, that men were entitled to control them, that women must obey, and that society had the right to judge their choices. These stereotypes were the foundations on which discrimination was built, violence was normalised, survivors were silenced, and impunity was sustained.
This general recommendation challenged not only gender stereotypes, but also the prejudices, discriminatory norms and unequal power relations that sustain them. It clarified States parties’ obligations, particularly under article 5, while addressing gender stereotypes as a form of discrimination, across all substantive articles of the Convention. It examined the power and persistence of gender stereotypes across the life cycle, and virtually every sphere of women’s and girls’ lives - from maternity, care and family relations to education, employment, health, access to justice, political participation, sports and recreation. The general recommendation also confronted the growing influence of stereotypes in artificial intelligence, digital technologies, social media and entertainment, while addressing their role in gender-based violence, armed conflict, climate-related disasters, humanitarian crises and harmful practices justified, in the name of culture or religion.
The general recommendation recognised gender stereotypes as a root cause of discrimination - not a peripheral social issue that could be addressed through awareness campaigns alone. It made clear that stereotypes were not confined to private attitudes. They were embedded in laws, policies, institutions and practices, shaping decisions in families, workplaces, schools, health services, courts and political institutions. The general recommendation placed a clear responsibility on States parties to act, calling for effective laws and policies, institutional accountability, adequate resources and action to challenge stereotypes, wherever they were created and reinforced. It recognised that transforming stereotypes was a collective responsibility.
States parties, United Nations entities and civil society must consider the general recommendation as a framework for action - as a commitment to change the realities of women’s and girls’ lives. The norms, institutions and distribution of power that made women’s lives unequal and unsafe must be changed. Ultimately, the true test of the recommendation would be whether a woman was safer in her home, whether the burden of care was shared more equally, whether a girl was freer to shape her future, and whether the next generation grew up knowing that equality was not a privilege to be granted, but a right to be respected.
RHODA REDDOCK, Committee Expert, said gender stereotypes were a common concept used in international law, and this general recommendation clarified that they were more than a set of discriminatory beliefs. They were generalised views, preconceptions, or perceptions of characteristics, roles and behaviours of women and men, based on socially constructed notions of the inferiority or the superiority of either of the sexes, and held in place by unequal structures, systems and power relations.
Discrimination against women was often the result of intersecting axes and systems of inequality. Stereotypes, prejudices and stigma were conceptually linked, rather than isolated categories. They were embedded in social norms, rules and standards in institutions, such as the State, economy and labour market, community, religious institutions and the family. Gender stereotypes reinforced existing discriminatory social norms, rules and practices that determined the roles, power and privileges of men and women. This recommendation called on States parties to take urgent action to challenge and dismantle all gender stereotypes, in collaboration with non-State actors, including the private sector, women’s organizations, communities and individuals, and at the federal, State and local levels.
Men and boys were also shaped and impacted by gender stereotypes. Across the world, patriarchal masculinities defined an idealised manhood, and men and boys were socialised to conform to these norms. They built upon harmful traits, attitudes and behaviours that consistently normalised inequality and encouraged violence, discrimination, domination, exploitation, control, militarisation, colonialism and a lack of accountability and care - affecting women and girls, but also men, boys and entire societies.
Digital technologies provided significant opportunities for women and girls, but could also reproduce and amplify gender stereotypes and facilitate gender-based violence. Social media, digital platforms and content systems may disseminate, amplify and facilitate the creation of misogynistic, sexualised and degrading representations of women and girls and rely on input, algorithms and feedback embedded with gender stereotypes. As such, the recommendation was an effective and constructive text.
Discussion
Stereotyping of women remained a matter of great concern, States said. There was an urgent need to dismantle these stereotypes and remove harmful practices affecting women and girls at many stages of life, through the meaningful contribution of all parties, including men, boys and institutions, to dismantle these barriers to the enjoyment of rights by all. The common aim of all should be to ensure true and full gender equality.
The Committee should have taken on board the wide range of feedbacks in earlier meetings, and should not have ignored the diversity of cultural and religious history of the States parties involved, one State pointed out. The Committee had no mandate to re-legislate the Convention or provide expansive interpretations. States retained the national right to legislate in accordance with religious and cultural context, and the recommendation should have respected the different national legislative frameworks.
Another State pointed out that some of the provisions of the recommendation went beyond the mandate of the Convention. This was, possibly, not the best use of the Committee’s time, another State said, as it would hardly improve the situation, containing, as it did, disputed terms and concepts that were irrelevant to women’s empowerment, and the recommendation constituted the Committee Experts’ personal view, and was thus not binding on States parties.
Change required the participation of all, other States said, and the recognition that gender stereotypes had an intersectional effect, and thus should be combatted from that perspective. Equality was not a gift; it was a right, and it was the collective duty of all to ensure that it was enjoyed by all. The attention of the recommendation to removing barriers to women’s employment and their access to equal pay was applauded. Its attention to women in conflict and in the context of technological progress was particularly appreciated.
As the Committee recognised, achieving substantive equality required addressing not only the manifestations of gender inequality, but also their causes. Efforts to dismantle discriminatory stereotypes must start at harmful norms, practices and behaviours through which gender stereotypes were developed, produced, and sustained, ensuring the participation of men and boys, which was essential to dismantling the beliefs and institutions that perpetuated this negative state of affairs. The attention to intersectionality in the recommendation was particularly applauded: disabled women and girls often faced additional barriers, such as in access to decision-making.
This was a milestone in strengthening the implementation of article 45 of the Convention, a State said, saying that it gave clear guidance to States on how to fulfil their commitments. The obligation to eliminate stereotypes at all levels of the educational field was particularly relevant in the new digital environment, which could amplify gender biases. A safe Internet for children and adolescents was vital. Stereotypes hindered women’s enjoyment of their rights, and discriminatory practices must be ended. Cumulative discrimination was anchored in traditions, but the cultural dimension should not be seen as a handicap but rather as an opportunity.
The focus of the recommendation was appreciated by some States, who pointed out the need to dismantle structural barriers that contributed to persisting inequalities, as gender stereotypes prescribed specific roles, preventing women and girls from realising and fully enjoying their human rights. They perpetuated harmful cultural roles that impeded this enjoyment. With the rise of new technologies, gender stereotypes found themselves current in new spaces, creating new barriers and impediments to the enjoyment of the human rights of all women and girls. Unequal power relations contributed to intergenerational barriers to this enjoyment, and a change of attitudes and patriarchal beliefs was required.
Recommendation 41 should strengthen national efforts to eliminate gender stereotypes and the effective implementation of the Convention, a speaker said. All general recommendations contributed to dialogue, said another speaker. Climate displacement and economic collapse deepened systemic inequalities and severely restricted life-preserving access to sexual and reproductive health services. Women must be recognised as leaders in such fields as conflict resolution and climate change, as this would ensure effective and inclusive solutions. The harms of patriarchal attitudes, affecting all, must be recognised.
Concluding Remarks
NAHLA HAIDAR, Committee Chairperson, in closing remarks, expressed her sincere appreciation to all those who had contributed to this meaningful exchange, and all those who were committed together to advancing women’s rights, and she looked forward to this dialogue continuing. There was maybe a misunderstanding about the importance of general recommendations, as without discussing issues, there would not be such an important body of international law. The Committee remained open to discussing with all groups that had expressed reservations to the text. She believed that without soft law, international law could never progress. She thanked all those involved in the elaboration of the text.
___________
Produced by the United Nations Information Service in Geneva for use of the media;
not an official record. English and French versions of our releases are different as they are the product of two separate coverage teams that work independently.
CEDAW/26/24